Trump Tax Bill Repeals Medical Expense Deduction

CNBC reported that Trump’s new tax plan removes an important deduction for nursing home residents. The Republican bill would repeal the medical expense deduction, which allows people who spend more than 10 percent of their income on out-of-pocket health costs to write them off.

The cost of living in a nursing home can easily run up to tens of thousands of dollars per year and wipe out the savings of elderly residents who are paying out of pocket. The deduction can be an important offset to taxes those Americans would owe on their retirement savings distributions.

“It tends to be mostly … older people who do not have long-term care insurance, and end up in a nursing home,” said Richard Kaplan, a professor who specializes in tax policy and elder law at the University of Illinois College of Law. “For people who are receiving long-term care and are paying for it themselves, this is going to be a huge deal,” said Kaplan.

“This would be a joke if the consequences weren’t so serious,” said Brad Woodhouse, campaign director of health-care advocacy group Protect Our Care, in a statement. “Republican leaders are determined to raise health-care costs for middle-class families who need it most — in this case people with high medical costs or those paying for long-term care.”